Career Doctor Articles

With the kind permission of the Career Doctor, jfo is able to bring you a series of articles to help you in your work situation and longer term career management

Just Been Sacked?

Getting the sack is not something most people experience too many times in their career, and so most people would not know what to do or where to begin, if their job has suddenly been taken away from them. Emotions run high at times like this, and it is difficult to find the right thing to do when the pain of dismissal is so strong.

We get quite a few people come to our consultancy after they have been dismissed and they are often angry, hurt, scared and bewildered. Vengeance is often another powerful emotion, so the dismissed person (the sackee?) is usually experiencing a wide range of emotions, some of which can be conflicting.

With so many things going on, emotionally, financially and career-wise, the sackee can be forgiven if he / she finds the whole business overwhelming. The one thing that I have learned as a career consultant is that one cannot apply a bandage (finding a new career / job) until the emotional poison has been cleaned from the wound. The sackee has to come to terms with the situation and put it behind him / her before we can move on to job-hunting. Easier said than done, of course!

In this article I will be looking at what to do after being dismissed. The wrong thing to do is easy to identify. That is to go out and immediately start looking for another job. It’s like having a car crash and trying to get back into the damaged car. Not a clever idea!

The right thing to do is to sit down and think. Evaluate the situation and draw up a game plan. What went wrong? Were you entirely to blame for getting the sack and deserved it; or did the company treat you unfairly? If so, what to do?

FIGHT OR FLIGHT

The starting point, as ever, is to decide what strategy to do, now that you have lost your job. In essence, you will only have two options, fight or flight. Should you fight your ex-employer or just forget the whole affair and try and start afresh?

Whatever you do, get lots of advice. Try the Citizens Advice Bureau, talk to friends and family, visit a solicitor perhaps, talk to your priest, your bank manager, your mortgage provider. Just keep talking and a picture of best options will start to emerge.

Another thing you should not do is knee-jerk. Rush to a solicitor the day after being sacked and initiating an Employment Tribunal claim may make you feel better - “that’ll teach them for sacking me” - but such an action may not necessarily be in your best long-term interests.

Of course if you really have been unfairly sacked, then rolling over and letting your ex-employer “get way with it” is a very unpalatable option. Most people would, quite naturally, pick the “fight” option, but this can be a daunting task, and one which needs careful analysis, however strongly you may feel about punishing your former boss.

When a would-be client comes to see me and I hear allegations of unfair dismissal I go out of my way to paint the down-side of submitting a claim to a Tribunal. Yes, I can help in submitting the claim, and dealing with lawyers, the Tribunal, ACAS, etc, but is this the best course of action? Perhaps we could persuade the employer to negotiate a Compromise Agreement? I have done this on numerous occasions. The sackee salvages something from the wreckage, and the employer wraps the case up, once-and-for-all. Everyone’s a winner.

GOING TO TRIBUNAL

Let us assume that you have thought long and hard, taken lots of advice, and have decided to take the fight option. In general terms the option of initiating a claim for unfair dismissal with an Employment Tribunal is something you can do providing you have worked for your employer for at least one year. This isn’t strictly true, as the law permits claims from people with less than one year’s service if the claim relates to matters about sex, race or trade union membership. You will need to see an employment solicitor if you think that this applies to you. If you do decide to make a claim it must be lodged with the Tribunal within three months of your dismissal, otherwise you will be out-of-time.

As a former Employee Relations Manager I use my HR experience in my consultancy when we help clients who want to submit a claim for unfair dismissal to an Employment Tribunal. Having been involved on both sides of the fence, I can assure the readers that submitting such a claim is the easy part, what follows can be very debilitating, emotionally, to the claimant. What are the risks? How much money are you prepared to part-with, in order to pursue your claim? How long can you afford to stay out of work?

If you do decide to submit a claim to a Tribunal, the amount of paperwork can be daunting, and any legal costs you incur can be quite high, especially if you instruct a barrister. And even if you win your case, you will almost certainly not get your costs repaid by the other side. The length of time your claim will drag on for can be measured in months, and, of course, you may lose your claim if the Tribunal finds against you.

Worse still is the legacy that you are building up when you do start applying for vacancies. Imagine this: the interviewer ask you why you left your old job, and you reply to the effect that you were sacked, but you are taking your old employer to a Tribunal. Such a reply will not endear you to the interviewer. What if you were a bad employee and were fairly sacked? Even if you were unfairly sacked it still means that you have a litigacious streak and could take your new employer (if they do offer you a job) to another Tribunal in the future.

Even worse than that - what if the Tribunal has decided against you and you’ve lost your claim. So you are going to tell this to the interviewer? He or she will certainly ask about the Tribunal’s decision. Bit of a nightmare in my book.

So there is a big price to pay if you do decide to fight. Think of your long-term future and beware of revenge. Remember that a solicitor wants your business / money, so he / she will try and paint a best-case outcome for you, in order to get you on-board as a client. Think about the emotional and financial effect on your family. How long will this nightmare drag on for?

TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK

Sometimes the wisest decision is to turn the other cheek and get on with your life. Forget about what happened to you, ignore the injustice, move on and recapture your life. Easier said than done, of course.

What is the downside of making this decision? There is the risk that the injustice of being sacked will rankle and eat away at you, making you a bitter person. Also the boss may treat other employees in the company in a similar way, so unless he is taught a lesson, others may suffer as you are suffering.

The problem of becoming a bitter person may need addressing, but most people simply shrug their shoulders and get on with finding another job. Time is a great healer.

Insofar as the remaining employees are concerned, may I venture to suggest that life will go on and these other employees will have to look after themselves. It is not your mission in life to solve other people’s problems (that’s my job!); your task is to solve your own problems. And if your former boss does not learn any lessons, so what?

Before turning the other cheek, ask yourself if there are any lessons to be learned from being sacked. How much did you contribute to getting the sack? Did you deserve it? What can you change to avoid getting the sack again in the future?

The upside of deciding to turn the other cheek is that there is much less trauma, risk, and delays. Legal costs can be avoided, and you are free to start job-hunting.

A NEW FUTURE

Your only real problem as a sackee is finding new employment. Financial pressures will soon mount and the longer you are out of work, the harder it will be to get back into work. The answer to the dreaded question “why did you leave your last job?” will take some rehearsing, I can tell you, having coached lots of sackees who have turned to my consultancy for help.

Expect more than your fair share of rejections. References will be sought, and most interviewers will adopt the motto “when in doubt, don’t”. So life can be a bitch, but every sackee who has turned to me to help them claw their way back into employment has been ultimately successful. It takes time, but that’s one thing you will have, as a sackee.

What you really need is self-confidence, and often a new vision for a new career path. A clean start. Perhaps you could be self-employed, or start a franchise? Perhaps you can find a new employer who is willing to take a chance on you? All it takes is courage, determination, and the right job-hunting methodologies.

Good luck!

The Career Doctor is Eric Hearn, Chartered MCIPD and Managing Director of Milverton Career Solutions Ltd, Ascot, Berkshire, UK.

Contact details:
Tel: 01344 624383
Email: milvertoncareers@btconnect.com
Website: www.careerdevelopment.co.uk